Day 43: July 29th, 2013: Craters of the Moon, ID to Yellowstone, WY

  • Aug 03, 2013
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Scott rolled out of the tent a little after six for a fifteen mile bike ride along the Crater’s of the Moon Loop Road, twice.  We had a light sprinkling of rain at about 7:30.  Which I only mention because we had gone “topless” again last night.  The rain was just enough to rinse off the half inch of dust that had accumulated on the outside of the tent since being in western Oregon.

Pictures from Scott’s early bike ride

    

Our camp neighbors were waiting patiently for our kids to wake up so they could play some more.  Despite the two sprinklings of rain and me rolling everything except the kids up, they slept on.  When Cody did finally wake up I told him our neighbor was waiting for him.  He said, “I’m going to say good morning to her mom, but I want to say good morning to Dad first.”

 

We started the day off with a visit to the visitor’s center, two movies on Crater’s of the Moon, and two hikes. The first hike was to Inferno Cone at 6,170 feet.  Thankfully it was a nice temperature outside.  Just last week they had 100 degree temperatures here. The picture above and on the right is of some flowers that speckled the lava flow in some places. It looked like little bits of snow or ice.  It is amazing that something so beautiful can survive in such harsh conditions.

   

View from the top.  Notice in the pictures above in the middle and on the right you can see the van as a tiny dot in the distance.  It wasn’t that long of a hike, but we gained elevation quickly.  Cody started to complain about the hike, but I gave him a granola bar and a Pop-Tart.  He managed to keep going.

When we walked on the lava flow the little pumice pieces under our shoes sounded like someone munching on Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  The rock was a little slippery at times.  On the way down both kids wanted to hold my hand so they wouldn’t slip.  The first person to slip was…ME!  Don’t worry.  I didn’t fall.  I had the kids to hold me up!  Brooke gave me a funny look.

Next we headed to the caves. There was a quarter mile hike to Dewdrop Cave.

 

At first it was hard to figure out where the cave was.  The entrance was not very large.

So, I’m not a big fan of small enclosed spaces.  In fact if too many of my students crowd around me while I’m sitting at a desk or table helping a student I have to ask the group of students to take a step back so I have some air to breath.  I was working very hard on mind over matter to get into the first cave.  It helped that I was focused on helping Cody too.  Then I saw the sign about falling rock just past the entrance.  Hmm…  If you look behind Cody in the picture above you see the entrance to the cave.  Thankfully it opened up after that but not for very long.

Next we hiked another quarter mile to Boy Scout Cave.  We ran into a ranger between the two caves.

The entrance into the Boy Scout Cave was rather hidden as well.

The cave had a tight spot very near the beginning.  Scott reminded me this wasn’t really a tight spot compared to what he is used to.  He was very into caving in college.  The RAs would love when Scott would come back to the dorms with mud encased clothing. I thought it was a smart idea to shimmy up the light pole to the second floor outside his dorm window and hang a clothesline for everything to dry.  They didn’t seem to appreciate his ingenuity. They probably rewrote the dorm rules after Scot left.  I’m pretty sure they also added, “No hanging of your kayak between the reinforced cement ceiling slabs with climbing equipment.”

Cody was so excited about finding ice in the cave. He started singing, “Ice. Ice. Baby,” and dancing.  Brooke was the first to notice the ice.  She was eager to keep going through the cave, but Scott was wise to remind Brooke that Cody can’t climb over the rock quite as easily as the rest of us.  The ice is in the cave year round.

While these lave tube caves do not have stalactites or stalagmites like most caves do they do have lava cicles and ice stalactites or icicles.  I grabbed a picture of the water eroding the lava rock inside the cave.  The middle picture above is of Pa-Hoe-Hoe lava, or lava that is smooth and comes out slowly in rope-like strands.  Most of the lava flow at Craters of the Moon was Pa-Hoe-Hoe.  Which was hard to believe since it was very easy to run into the rough lava or the Ah-Ah.

  

We were on the road a little before noon headed northeast towards Yellowstone. We stopped in Idaho Falls for lunch.  The kids chased each other, blew bubbles, threw the Frisbee, and finally played on the equipment before we hopped back into the car again. We touched into Montana shortly before entering Yellowstone on the west on Route 20.  As you enter Yosemite you also enter Wyoming.  While Montana is not a new state for the kids, Wyoming is.  By 4 pm both kids had passed out.  If only we could count on an afternoon nap from both of them every time we were in the van, but then we probably wouldn’t appreciate it as much.

We arrived in Yellowstone’s Madison Campground shortly after 5pm.  The campground said it was full, but Scott tried to get a site anyway.  And…  We got a site.  It was not the best site as it was on the corner of two roads, was very tiny, and right next to a bathroom with plumbing concerns that created a sound that made you think it was either haunted or had really bad gas, but it was a site nonetheless.  The site did come with very friendly neighbors though.

After dinner we put on some pants, jackets, and head lamps and hiked to the campground amphitheater for a ranger talk at 9. The ranger talk was titled “For the Birds.” The pictures of the birds of Yellowstone were beautiful. However, the talk was a little long for our kids at a little over 45 minutes. The ranger was definitely passionate about the topic, but compared to our hands-on junior ranger talk the night before in Craters of the Moon, it was not as exciting for the kids.

 

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